The night was thick as ink.
Black Snake lay coiled in the shadows, watching the Government Office men run about with long poles to drive away the dogs. They had long since exhausted their arrows, but more and more scavenging wild dogs gathered in the wilderness, drawn by the stench. The men could only swing their clubs, panting and struggling to keep up.
Suddenly, Black Snake felt a faint stirring in the soil pressed against his belly.
He lazily shifted aside, leaving that patch clear, and a mole cricket rustled out of the earth.
The little creature was probably just over one cun long, as He Ning reckoned lengths, with two flat, shovel-like foreclaws. It clumsily crawled this way and burrowed that way.
Now this is interesting!
He immediately forgot the Yin Souls and wild dogs, focusing entirely on the tiny living creature.
He blocked the mole cricket's path with his tail tip and watched it burrow into his short, soft spines. Its two shovel-like foreclaws tugged and pried on either side, tickling delightfully. Once the mole cricket had burrowed into the soft spines, he immediately raised his tail tip.
Tilting his head, he brought one slit-pupiled eye close to study the tiny creature on his tail.
It actually has wings. How enviable.
After watching his fill, he lightly flicked his tail and sent the mole cricket flying.
At some unknown hour in the latter half of the night.
The Daoists looked weary, their chanting hoarse and low. Most of the departed souls had been ushered into the long procession, but some still circled restlessly where they stood, wrapped in resentment and anguish that would not dissolve, unwilling to leave.
Black Snake thought these souls might well become Vengeful Ghosts. He wondered how the Government Office dealt with such sorrow-stricken